A Day to Celebrate

I finally finished my 16 year-old's blanket.  She is soon to turn 17 and it will be part of her hope chest.  However, because the upstairs is not heated, she is getting her blanket today.

Here is a close up of the stitching 

I have one more child to crochet a blanket for, and then I can start on a bedspread for my own bed.  I just need to decide on pattern and color.

Bean Baking Day ~ Putting Food By ~ What to do with the crumbs at the bottom of your cereal box

My largest crock pot will cook up 3 pounds of dry black beans nicely.  For my family, I bake them up with chopped onions, salt and pepper. 

Once these are baked (pre-soaked the night before) I cool them.  They are frozen for future meals.  Some may end up in tonight's dinner.  We are having a lot of fun searching out healthier meals using dry beans.  We recently used the last of the black beans I had in the freezer.

Yesterday, we made Pumpkin Black Bean Soup, and found it delicious.  It's got a spicy~sweet combo going on.  We will be keeping that recipe.  Although the recipe calls for canned tomatoes, I dumped in a quart sized bag of tomatoes I had frozen from last summer's garden.  I skipped the sour cream, and heavy cream.  I simply used 1 cup of organic milk.  For the chicken broth, I found organic, free range chicken broth on clearance for $1.49 for 4 cups (or you could make your own).

Here are other recipes, either from magazines such as Clean Eating, or from on-line that we revamped with garden goodies (simply swap out store bought with home grown, and use baked dry beans):

Chicken Black Bean and Avocado Wraps (Clean Eating, nutrition)

Mexican Pasta

Black Bean Pasta

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

And don't forget you can add black beans to your egg dishes for breakfast too.  Yum!

It was perfect for a cold day, along with the banana bread I baked up.  Two loaves used up 6 rotten bananas, and my plan was to bake a third and freeze it.  However, my large family has snagged most of the bread to pack in school lunches tomorrow.

Yum!  We made with by cutting the flour in half and using half wholewheat from the flour mill, and 1/2 white flour.  I like the recipe we use for this, because it only requires 1 egg, and during winter our chickens lay less eggs.

Banana Bread (nuts optional)

3/4 cup wholewheat flour (preservative free)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour 

1/2 cup sugar, organic

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda 

1 cup of crushed leftover wheat breakfast cereal (optional, a way to use of the crumbs in the box)

1/3 cup chopped nuts

1 egg, farm fresh slightly beaten

1/4 canola oil or 1/4 cup organic applesauce

2 Tbsp. water

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease and flour a bread (loaf) pan, or spray the inside with a non-stick organic olive oil spray.  Stir together flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, wheat cereal, and nuts.  Combine egg, oil, water, mashed banana and vanilla in a separate bowl.  Add all the dry ingredients at once to the wet, and stir only until moistened.  Pour into your bread pan, and bake from 50-55 minutes or until bread is tested done with a toothpick (pressed into center of bread, if it comes out clean it is done).  Let the bread cool in the pan about 15 minutes and then remove.  Cool completely before slicing.  

Note:  The wholewheat flour tends to dry the bread more so than the white, so by eliminating the extra crushed cereal, you may find it a bit softer.  

Freezing Weather is Great for Baking Days

I'm taking advantage of some rotten bananas, some extra whole wheat flour (from the stone mill) that was in the freezer, and baking a double batch of banana bread.

Freezing temperatures, down to zero, are perfect days to do some baking.  It helps heat up my unheated kitchen, and we have a healthy meal or snack.

While the bread is baking, I can write, and enjoy the delicious aroma that works its way through the house.  Oh, and I can stay warm too.

Retreat at Home

Winter weather keeps most people indoors.  After a long week of work, whether it's a paid job or non-paid job, couples tend to burned out emotionally and physically.  The recession also kept many people such as ourselves, from taking vacations.  We did go tent camping in late summer last year, and had a blast for $17.00/night.  We cooked over the campfire, and hiked.  It was a retreat of a different kind.

I was reading the newspaper they other day and read about a couple who placed a cabin on their 1 acre of land for a place to get away from it all.  I have to admit, I was jealous.  I would love to place a hideaway on our property and use it for a personal retreat, or a mini-home vacation with my husband.  I think it's time to add a it to the family wish list.

You may also enjoy reading:  How to have a weekend getaway in your home

Making Progress ~ Flyday Guide to Cleaning and Organizing

This week I focused on the bathroom, although we did go back to the kitchen and clean light fixtures (badly needed it! Blech.).  I tackled one drawer in the bathroom, and lined it with scrap wallpaper that was simply taking up space in my craft closet.

Before

After (drawer lined with scrap wallpaper also)

Now...if you asked what I wrote today, I'd have to tell you zippo.  Ugh.  I need an inspirational "coach" for daily writing, as Flylady is with cleaning and organizing.  They work together for me, because I can't sit and write when my house is a mess.

In search for daily writer's inspiration, I found these Web sites:

The Writing Coach

Daily Writing - Prompts

Writer's First Aid

Liz Curtis Higgs

Although I found these sites very encouraging, I would have loved to find a Web site that has fun daily writing goals for writers.  For example, Monday: write in a journal, write a letter to someone and mail it, or similar.  Sometimes I get into a rut with a fiction story, and just need inspiration to write something else, so I can move on. 

I can rest easy, as far as the bathroom goes.  But what's on the cleaning agenda for next week?  

.  .  .  . the master bedroom.

It's a "noter" day

I had a nice surprise today.  I came to my computer to find a "noter" from my youngest daughter.  A "noter" from me is in her lunch bag already.  Her note reminds me to take time to write today.

Comfortable or Not Comfortable?

Meet Sadie.  It appears as if she is dreaming of a nice soft pillow to rest her head.  Sound asleep and drooling.